About

DIXIE DREAMLAND (2023) is a significant work from Ward’s ongoing series exploring tactile and everyday materials, where he renders words and phrases out of multi-colored shoelaces inserted into a wall. Reflecting Ward’s long standing interest in the relationship between history, commemoration, and language, DIXIE DREAMLAND references the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. During the racially charged and violent Massacre, armed white arsonists and looters ravaged Greenwood, a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Often described as “America’s Black Wall Street,” Greenwood was home to many …